By Jeremy Harness

Not too long ago, the Houston Astros were thought of as the laughingstock of the majors. This year, on the other hand, not so much.

The Astros are the most surprising team in baseball this young season, leading the competitive American League West with a roster full of up-and-coming players that are hungry to prove themselves on the big stage.

One of those budding stars is outfielder George Springer, who unleashed a solo home run off left-handed reliever Jeremy Affeldt to break a tie in the eighth inning and led the Astros past the Giants on Wednesday, 4-3, at Minute Maid Park.

The ball is known to fly out of this small ballpark – particularly in one of the shortest left fields in the majors – and there were certainly no shortages of longballs on Wednesday.

Buster Posey gave the Giants a 3-1 lead in the fifth inning with a two-run homer into the short porch in left field. In the bottom half, however, the Astros narrowed it when Jason Castro’s blast sailed over the center-field wall.

Houston tied things up in the sixth inning when Luis Valbuena belted one into the right-field seats to set up Springer’s heroics two innings later.

After losing more than 100 games last season, the Astros are now 4 ½ games in front of the Angels in the AL West with a 21-13 record. Meanwhile, the Giants, after making a resurgence after falling way behind in the National League West, fell back to .500 and are currently 5 ½ games behind the division-leading Dodgers.

After getting the split in Houston, the Giants will now head to Cincinnati to start a four-game series that begins on Thursday before hosting the Dodgers, whom they swept in their previous home series last month, for a three-gamer that starts Tuesday night at AT&T Park